Achaea (Patras)
Achaea is a region on the central northern coast of the Peloponnese (in ancient times it was also a place in southern Thessaly). Here it borders Corinthia to the southeast, Elis to the southwest and Arcadia to the south. Twelve small towns, including Patras, formed a state dividing this territory. Achaea sent colonists to Sybaris (c.720 BC), Croton (c.708 BC), Caulonia (c.650 BC) and Metapontum (c.650 BC) in south Italy alongside other Greeks; but remained largely isolated from the rest of the Greeks and the conflicts of the time.
Elis (Olympia)
Elis is a region in northwest Peloponnese; bounded on the northeast by Achaea, east by Arcadia, south by Messenia and west by the Ionian Sea. Altis, the sacred enclosure of Olympia, lies at the foot of the low hill of Cronus, where rivers Alpheus and Cladius meet before they break out into a fertile bordering on the Ionian Sea.
Olympia was the main sanctuary of Zeus in Greece. According to Pindar (c.522-c.438 BC) the Olympic festival was established by Hercules, but local belief says that the mythical Pelops (from whom the Peloponnese acquired its name; ‘island of Pelops’) founded it after his victory over Oenomaus, king of Pisa. The games are said to have started in the ninth century BC, but the first Olympiad was dated 776 BC.
The Altis was a walled, sacred area. The chief shrine was the altar of Zeus. The most ancient architectural remains are those of a temple to Hera built c.590 BC which was apparently constructed by Pisatians since they seem to have gained control of the sanctuary during the seventh century BC as a result of intervention by Pheidon of Argos. If so, they appear to have lost this role in c.572 BC to the larger community of Elis.
The Olympic Games were one of the four major athletic festivals, the others being the Pythian (at Delphi), Isthmian (near Corinth) and Nemean (at Nemea in Corinthia). The Games at Olympia were regarded as the greatest of the four and gained their Panhellenic status two hundred years before the others.
Arcadia (Megalopolis)
Arcadia occupies the highlands at the centre of the Peloponnese. It borders on Achaea to the north, Elis to the northwest, Messenia to the southeast, Laconia to the south, Argolis to the east and Corinthia to the northeast. Landlocked and mountainous, ancient Arcadia was a land of villages. It therefore played little part in Greek politics, but through Mantinea and Tegea to the east it exercised considerable influence on the activities of Sparta, especially in the fifth century BC. Megalopolis was founded after the Battle of Leuctra in 371 BC.
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